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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12)




All the attempts made this session to give fuller powers of peace to the
commanders in America were stifled by the fatal confidence of victory
and the wild hopes of unconditional submission. There was a moment
favorable to the king's arms, when, if any powers of concession had
existed on the other side of the Atlantic, even after all our errors,
peace in all probability might have been restored. But calamity is
unhappily the usual season of reflection; and the pride of men will not
often suffer reason to have any scope, until it can be no longer of
service.

I have always wished, that as the dispute had its apparent origin from
things done in Parliament, and as the acts passed there had provoked the
war, that the foundations of peace should be laid in Parliament also. I
have been astonished to find that those whose zeal for the dignity of
our body was so hot as to light up the flames of civil war should even
publicly declare that these delicate points ought to be wholly left to
the crown. Poorly as I may be thought affected to the authority of
Parliament, I shall never admit that our constitutional rights can ever
become a matter of ministerial negotiation.

I am charged with being an American. If warm affection towards those
over whom I claim any share of authority be a crime, I am guilty of this
charge. But I do assure you, (and they who know me publicly and
privately will bear witness to me,) that, if ever one man lived more
zealous than another for the supremacy of Parliament and the rights of
this imperial crown, it was myself. Many others, indeed, might be more
knowing in the extent of the foundation of these rights. I do not
pretend to be an antiquary, a lawyer, or qualified for the chair of
professor in metaphysics. I never ventured to put your solid interests
upon speculative grounds. My having constantly declined to do so has
been attributed to my incapacity for such disquisitions; and I am
inclined to believe it is partly the cause. I never shall be ashamed to
confess, that, where I am ignorant, I am diffident. I am, indeed, not
very solicitous to clear myself of this imputed incapacity; because men
even less conversant than I am in this kind of subtleties, and placed
in stations to which I ought not to aspire, have, by the mere force of
civil discretion, often conducted the affairs of great nations with
distinguished felicity and glory.

When I first came into a public trust, I found your Parliament in
possession of an unlimited legislative power over the colonies. I could
not open the statute-book without seeing the actual exercise of it, more
or less, in all cases whatsoever. This possession passed with me for a
title. It does so in all human affairs. No man examines into the defects
of his title to his paternal estate or to his established government.
Indeed, common sense taught me that a legislative authority not actually
limited by the express terms of its foundation, or by its own subsequent
acts, cannot have its powers parcelled out by argumentative
distinctions, so as to enable us to say that here they can and there
they cannot bind. Nobody was so obliging as to produce to me any record
of such distinctions, by compact or otherwise, either at the successive
formation of the several colonies or during the existence of any of
them. If any gentlemen were able to see how one power could be given up
(merely on abstract reasoning) without giving up the rest, I can only
say that they saw further than I could. Nor did I ever presume to
condemn any one for being clear-sighted when I was blind. I praise their
penetration and learning, and hope that their practice has been
correspondent to their theory.

I had, indeed, very earnest wishes to keep the whole body of this
authority perfect and entire as I found it,--and to keep it so, not for
our advantage solely, but principally for the sake of those on whose
account all just authority exists: I mean the people to be governed.
For I thought I saw that many cases might well happen in which the
exercise of every power comprehended in the broadest idea of legislature
might become, in its time and circumstances, not a little expedient for
the peace and union of the colonies amongst themselves, as well as for
their perfect harmony with Great Britain. Thinking so, (perhaps
erroneously, but being honestly of that opinion,) I was at the same time
very sure that the authority of which I was so jealous could not, under
the actual circumstances of our plantations, be at all preserved in any
of its members, but by the greatest reserve in its application,
particularly in those delicate points in which the feelings of mankind
are the most irritable. They who thought otherwise have found a few more
difficulties in their work than (I hope) they were thoroughly aware of,
when they undertook the present business. I must beg leave to observe,
that it is not only the invidious branch of taxation that will be
resisted, but that no other given part of legislative rights can be
exercised, without regard to the general opinion of those who are to be
governed. That general opinion is the vehicle and organ of legislative
omnipotence. Without this, it may be a theory to entertain the mind, but
it is nothing in the direction of affairs. The completeness of the
legislative authority of Parliament _over this kingdom_ is not
questioned; and yet many things indubitably included in the abstract
idea of that power, and which carry no absolute injustice in themselves,
yet being contrary to the opinions and feelings of the people, can as
little be exercised as if Parliament in that case had been possessed of
no right at all. I see no abstract reason, which can be given, why the
same power which made and repealed the High Commission Court and the
Star-Chamber might not revive them again; and these courts, warned by
their former fate, might possibly exercise their powers with some degree
of justice. But the madness would be as unquestionable as the competence
of that Parliament which should attempt such things. If anything can be
supposed out of the power of human legislature, it is religion; I admit,
however, that the established religion of this country has been three or
four times altered by act of Parliament, and therefore that a statute
binds even in that case. But we may very safely affirm, that,
notwithstanding this apparent omnipotence, it would be now found as
impossible for King and Parliament to alter the established religion of
this country as it was to King James alone, when he attempted to make
such an alteration without a Parliament. In effect, to follow, not to
force, the public inclination,--to give a direction, a form, a technical
dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community,
is the true end of legislature.

It is so with regard to the exercise of all the powers which our
Constitution knows in any of its parts, and indeed to the substantial
existence of any of the parts themselves. The king's negative to bills
is one of the most indisputed of the royal prerogatives; and it extends
to all cases whatsoever. I am far from certain, that if several laws,
which I know, had fallen under the stroke of that sceptre, that the
public would have had a very heavy loss. But it is not the _propriety_
of the exercise which is in question. The exercise itself is wisely
forborne. Its repose may be the preservation of its existence; and its
existence may be the means of saying the Constitution itself, on an
occasion worthy of bringing it forth.

As the disputants whose accurate and logical reasonings have brought us
into our present condition think it absurd that powers or members of any
constitution should exist, rarely, if ever, to be exercised, I hope I
shall be excused in mentioning another instance that is material. We
know that the Convocation of the Clergy had formerly been called, and
sat with nearly as much regularity to business as Parliament itself. It
is now called for form only. It sits for the purpose of making some
polite ecclesiastical compliments to the king, and, when that grace is
said, retires and is heard of no more. It is, however, _a part of the
Constitution_, and may be called out into act and energy, whenever there
is occasion, and whenever those who conjure up that spirit will choose
to abide the consequences. It is wise to permit its legal existence: it
is much wiser to continue it a legal existence only. So truly has
prudence (constituted as the god of this lower world) the entire
dominion over every exercise of power committed into its hands! And yet
I have lived to see prudence and conformity to circumstances wholly set
at nought in our late controversies, and treated as if they were the
most contemptible and irrational of all things. I have heard it an
hundred times very gravely alleged, that, in order to keep power in
wind, it was necessary, by preference, to exert it in those very points
in which it was most likely to be resisted and the least likely to be
productive of any advantage.

These were the considerations, Gentlemen, which led me early to think,
that, in the comprehensive dominion which the Divine Providence had put
into our hands, instead of troubling our understandings with
speculations concerning the unity of empire and the identity or
distinction of legislative powers, and inflaming our passions with the
heat and pride of controversy, it was our duty, in all soberness, to
conform our government to the character and circumstances of the several
people who composed this mighty and strangely diversified mass. I never
was wild enough to conceive that one method would serve for the whole,
that the natives of Hindostan and those of Virginia could be ordered in
the same manner, or that the Cutchery court and the grand jury of Salem
could be regulated on a similar plan. I was persuaded that government
was a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind, and not to
furnish out a spectacle of uniformity to gratify the schemes of
visionary politicians. Our business was to rule, not to wrangle; and it
would have been a poor compensation that we had triumphed in a dispute,
whilst we lost an empire.

If there be one fact in the world perfectly clear, it is this,--"that
the disposition of the people of America is wholly averse to any other
than a free government"; and this is indication enough to any honest
statesman how he ought to adapt whatever power he finds in his hands to
their case. If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for
any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,--and that they,
and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.
If they practically allow me a greater degree of authority over them
than is consistent with any correct ideas of perfect freedom, I ought to
thank them for so great a trust, and not to endeavor to prove from
thence that they have reasoned amiss, and that, having gone so far, by
analogy they must hereafter have no enjoyment but by my pleasure.

If we had seen this done by any others, we should have concluded them
far gone in madness. It is melancholy, as well as ridiculous, to observe
the kind of reasoning with which the public has been amused, in order to
divert our minds from the common sense of our American policy. There are
people who have split and anatomized the doctrine of free government, as
if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and
necessity, and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling. They
have disputed whether liberty be a positive or a negative idea; whether
it does not consist in being governed by laws, without considering what
are the laws, or who are the makers; whether man has any rights by
Nature; and whether all the property he enjoys be not the alms of his
government, and his life itself their favor and indulgence. Others,
corrupting religion as these have perverted philosophy, contend that
Christians are redeemed into captivity, and the blood of the Saviour of
mankind has been shed to make them the slaves of a few proud and
insolent sinners. These shocking extremes provoking to extremes of
another kind, speculations are let loose as destructive to all authority
as the former are to all freedom; and every government is called tyranny
and usurpation which is not formed on their fancies. In this manner the
stirrers-up of this contention, not satisfied with distracting our
dependencies and filling them with blood and slaughter, are corrupting
our understandings: they are endeavoring to tear up, along with
practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity and
justice, religion and order.

Civil freedom, Gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavored to persuade
you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a
blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just
reasoning that can be upon it is of so coarse a texture as perfectly to
suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who
are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in
geometry and metaphysics which admit no medium, but must be true or
false in all their latitude, social and civil freedom, like all other
things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very
different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms,
according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The
_extreme_ of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real
fault) obtains nowhere, nor ought to obtain anywhere; because extremes,
as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or
satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment.
Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of
restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought
to be the constant aim of every wise public counsel to find out by
cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavors, with how little, not
how much, of this restraint the community can subsist: for liberty is a
good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a
private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of
the state itself, which has just so much life and vigor as there is
liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not, (for I know
it is a fashion to decry the very principle,) none will dispute that
peace is a blessing; and peace must, in the course of human affairs, be
frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty:
for, as the Sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or
authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies
of the time, and the temper and character of the people with whom it is
concerned, and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to
their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind, on their part, are
not excessively curious concerning any theories whilst they are really
happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state is the propensity
of the people to resort to them.

But when subjects, by a long course of such ill conduct, are once
thoroughly inflamed, and the state itself violently distempered, the
people must have some satisfaction to their feelings more solid than a
sophistical speculation on law and government. Such was our situation:
and such a satisfaction was necessary to prevent recourse to arms; it
was necessary towards laying them down; it will be necessary to prevent
the taking them up again and again. Of what nature this satisfaction
ought to be I wish it had been the disposition of Parliament seriously
to consider. It was certainly a deliberation that called for the
exertion of all their wisdom.

I am, and ever have been, deeply sensible of the difficulty of
reconciling the strong presiding power, that is so useful towards the
conservation of a vast, disconnected, infinitely diversified empire,
with that liberty and safety of the provinces which they must enjoy,
(in opinion and practice at least,) or they will not be provinces at
all. I know, and have long felt, the difficulty of reconciling the
unwieldy haughtiness of a great ruling nation, habituated to command,
pampered by enormous wealth, and confident from a long course of
prosperity and victory, to the high spirit of free dependencies,
animated with the first glow and activity of juvenile heat, and assuming
to themselves, as their birthright, some part of that very pride which
oppresses them. They who perceive no difficulty in reconciling these
tempers (which, however, to make peace, must some way or other be
reconciled) are much above my capacity, or much below the magnitude of
the business. Of one thing I am perfectly clear: that it is not by
deciding the suit, but by compromising the difference, that peace can be
restored or kept. They who would put an end to such quarrels by
declaring roundly in favor of the whole demands of either party have
mistaken, in my humble opinion, the office of a mediator.

The war is now of full two years' standing: the controversy of many
more. In different periods of the dispute, different methods of
reconciliation were to be pursued. I mean to trouble you with a short
state of things at the most important of these periods, in order to give
you a more distinct idea of our policy with regard to this most delicate
of all objects. The colonies were from the beginning subject to the
legislature of Great Britain on principles which they never examined;
and we permitted to them many local privileges, without asking how they
agreed with that legislative authority. Modes of administration were
formed in an insensible and very unsystematic manner. But they gradually
adapted themselves to the varying condition of things. What was first a
single kingdom stretched into an empire; and an imperial
superintendence, of some kind or other, became necessary. Parliament,
from a mere representative of the people, and a guardian of popular
privileges for its own immediate constituents, grew into a mighty
sovereign. Instead of being a control on the crown on its own behalf, it
communicated a sort of strength to the royal authority, which was wanted
for the conservation of a new object, but which could not be safely
trusted to the crown alone. On the other hand, the colonies, advancing
by equal steps, and governed by the same necessity, had formed within
themselves, either by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies so
exceedingly resembling a parliament, in all their forms, functions, and
powers, that it was impossible they should not imbibe some opinion of a
similar authority.

At the first designation of these assemblies, they were probably not
intended for anything more (nor perhaps did they think themselves much
higher) than the municipal corporations within this island, to which
some at present love to compare them. But nothing in progression can
rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man
in the cradle of an infant. Therefore, as the colonies prospered and
increased to a numerous and mighty people, spreading over a very great
tract of the globe, it was natural that they should attribute to
assemblies so respectable in their formal constitution some part of the
dignity of the great nations which they represented. No longer tied to
by-laws, these assemblies made acts of all sorts and in all cases
whatsoever. They levied money, not for parochial purposes, but upon
regular grants to the crown, following all the rules and principles of a
parliament, to which they approached every day more and more nearly.
Those who think themselves wiser than Providence and stronger than the
course of Nature may complain of all this variation, on the one side or
the other, as their several humors and prejudices may lead them. But
things could not be otherwise; and English colonies must be had on these
terms, or not had at all. In the mean time neither party felt any
inconvenience from this double legislature, to which they had been
formed by imperceptible habits, and old custom, the great support of all
the governments in the world. Though these two legislatures were
sometimes found perhaps performing the very same functions, they did not
very grossly or systematically clash. In all likelihood this arose from
mere neglect, possibly from the natural operation of things, which, left
to themselves, generally fall into their proper order. But whatever was
the cause, it is certain that a regular revenue, by the authority of
Parliament, for the support of civil and military establishments, seems
not to have been thought of until the colonies were too proud to submit,
too strong to be forced, too enlightened not to see all the consequences
which must arise from such a system.

If ever this scheme of taxation was to be pushed against the
inclinations of the people, it was evident that discussions must arise,
which would let loose all the elements that composed this double
constitution, would show how much each of their members had departed
from its original principles, and would discover contradictions in each
legislature, as well to its own first principles as to its relation to
the other, very difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to be
reconciled.

Therefore, at the first fatal opening of this contest, the wisest course
seemed to be to put an end as soon as possible to the immediate causes
of the dispute, and to quiet a discussion, not easily settled upon clear
principles, and arising from claims which pride would permit neither
party to abandon, by resorting as nearly as possible to the old,
successful course. A mere repeal of the obnoxious tax, with a
declaration of the legislative authority of this kingdom, was then fully
sufficient to procure peace to _both sides_. Man is a creature of habit,
and, the first breach being of very short continuance, the colonies fell
back exactly into their ancient state. The Congress has used an
expression with regard to this pacification which appears to me truly
significant. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, "the colonies fell,"
says this assembly, "into their ancient state of _unsuspecting
confidence in the mother country_." This unsuspecting confidence is the
true centre of gravity amongst mankind, about which all the parts are at
rest. It is this _unsuspecting confidence_ that removes all
difficulties, and reconciles all the contradictions which occur in the
complexity of all ancient puzzled political establishments. Happy are
the rulers which have the secret of preserving it!

The whole empire has reason to remember with eternal gratitude the
wisdom and temper of that man and his excellent associates, who, to
recover this confidence, formed a plan of pacification in 1766. That
plan, being built upon the nature of man, and the circumstances and
habits of the two countries, and not on any visionary speculations,
perfectly answered its end, as long as it was thought proper to adhere
to it. Without giving a rude shock to the dignity (well or ill
understood) of this Parliament, they gave perfect content to our
dependencies. Had it not been for the mediatorial spirit and talents of
that great man between such clashing pretensions and passions, we should
then have rushed headlong (I know what I say) into the calamities of
that civil war in which, by departing from his system, we are at length
involved; and we should have been precipitated into that war at a time
when circumstances both at home and abroad were far, very far, more
unfavorable unto us than they were at the breaking out of the present
troubles.

I had the happiness of giving my first votes in Parliament for that
pacification. I was one of those almost unanimous members who, in the
necessary concessions of Parliament, would as much as possible have
preserved its authority and respected its honor. I could not at once
tear from my heart prejudices which were dear to me, and which bore a
resemblance to virtue. I had then, and I have still, my partialities.
What Parliament gave up I wished to be given as of grace and favor and
affection, and not as a restitution of stolen goods. High dignity
relented as it was soothed; and a benignity from old acknowledged
greatness had its full effect on our dependencies. Our unlimited
declaration of legislative authority produced not a single murmur. If
this undefined power has become odious since that time, and full of
horror to the colonies, it is because the _unsuspicious confidence_ is
lost, and the parental affection, in the bosom of whose boundless
authority they reposed their privileges, is become estranged and
hostile.

It will be asked, if such was then my opinion of the mode of
pacification, how I came to be the very person who moved, not only for a
repeal of all the late coercive statutes, but for mutilating, by a
positive law, the entireness of the legislative power of Parliament, and
cutting off from it the whole right of taxation. I answer, Because a
different state of things requires a different conduct. When the dispute
had gone to these last extremities, (which no man labored more to
prevent than I did,) the concessions which had satisfied in the
beginning could satisfy no longer; because the violation of tacit faith
required explicit security. The same cause which has introduced all
formal compacts and covenants among men made it necessary: I mean,
habits of soreness, jealousy, and distrust. I parted with it as with a
limb, but as a limb to save the body: and I would have parted with more,
if more had been necessary; anything rather than a fruitless, hopeless,
unnatural civil war. This mode of yielding would, it is said, give way
to independency without a war. I am persuaded, from the nature of
things, and from every information, that it would have had a directly
contrary effect. But if it had this effect, I confess that I should
prefer independency without war to independency with it; and I have so
much trust in the inclinations and prejudices of mankind, and so little
in anything else, that I should expect ten times more benefit to this
kingdom from the affection of America, though under a separate
establishment, than from her perfect submission to the crown and
Parliament, accompanied with her terror, disgust, and abhorrence. Bodies
tied together by so unnatural a bond of union as mutual hatred are only
connected to their ruin.

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